"We have agreed that we will work together because we have a common goal and that goal is to preserve America and preserve the American dream for people coming afterwards," he said. "To me, position or title is completely irrelevant compared to saving this nation.”
Politico
By Nick Gass
03/16/16 03:37 PM EDT
Ben Carson is still endorsing Donald Trump for president, but he's doing it with a few stipulations.
If he were simply endorsing a candidate for president based on his personal feelings, Carson would not be all in for the man who had suggested that the world-renowned neurosurgeon was merely an "OK doctor" and compared him to a child molester. To some degree, Carson said, those attacks worked against him.
"You know, it’s not really about me. If it were about me, yes, I would be outraged, I would say, no way could I support this," the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon told Yahoo's Bianna Golodryga in an interview Wednesday. "But it’s not about me; it’s about America. It’s about our future, it’s about what’s going to happen to the next generations. I’m much more concerned about that than I am about me.”
Carson offered an apology of sorts to Trump for his own rhetorical volleys, remarking that Trump himself had said those comments came only from a political standpoint and that he did not really believe them."You know,
I understand politics and particularly the politics of personal destruction," Carson said. "And you have to admit that to some degree, it did work. You know, a lot of people believed him. And when all of those things were proven not to be true, they just sort of forgot about it. But you know, we live in a society where that kind of thing works and people use things that work.”
Asked whether that should be the status quo, Carson said it should not, but hastened to add, "
nor should status quo be always retaliating and fighting back against something like that, particularly when the person has admitted that they were doing it for political reasons and that of course they didn’t believe that, nor does anybody else.”
He also rejected the notion that his endorsement of Trump represented a quid-pro-quo for a White House Cabinet or administration post, something that has been prohibited by federal law for more than 130 years.
"That would be ridiculous. I would never ask for such a thing. And people take liberties and then you believe what they say. That’s just not true," Carson said, after Golodryga asked about a previous interview with Newsmax on Monday in which he asserted that he would be doing things in "an advisory capacity."
"We have agreed that we will work together because we have a common goal and that goal is to preserve America and preserve the American dream for people coming afterwards," he said. "To me, position or title is completely irrelevant compared to saving this nation.”
As far as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Carson said they should not get out of the race, but rather let the political process work.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/ben-carson-defends-trump-attacks-220881
